An anthropological approach to all things geek

Who are these geeks?

Marie-Pierre Renaud – Founding Editor

A sociocultural anthropologist, Marie-Pierre specializes in native studies and has written her master’s memoir on Healing Our Spirit Worldwide, an international indigenous healing movement. Her fields of interest include reconciliation processes, contemporary indigenous art, healing and decolonization movements, and popular culture, particularly geek culture. She founded The Geek Anthropologist in 2012 because she wanted to write about the intersections between anthropology and science-fiction, two of her greatest passions. To learn more, see her About.me page or read From Science-Fiction to Anthropology: There and Back Again. Contact Marie-Pierre on Twitter @KawaiMarie or by email at thegeekanthropologist@gmail.com. Find her on Linkedin and Academia.edu.

Emma Louise Backe – Managing Editor

Emma is a Master’s student in Medical Anthropology at George Washington University, where she is also pursuing a certificate in Global Gender Policy. She is interested in the ways that gender constructions and norms inform public health initiatives and international development, particularly in regards to women and girls’ reproductive and sexual health. She is currently conducting fieldwork in Washington D.C., but after graduating from Vassar College with a degree in Anthropology and English, she served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the community health sector of Fiji. Her scholarship is also dedicated to making anthropology public and using geeky mediums like science fiction to demonstrate the continued salience of cultural sensitivity and reflexivity in popular culture and political contexts. She can be reached via Twitter @EmmaLouiseBacke or by email at emma.backe@gmail.com.

Nicholas J. Mizer – Editor

Dr. Nicholas Mizer is a multi-classed anthropologist / folklorist / performance studies scholar. Although much of his work focuses on tabletop role-playing games, he thinks that studying geek culture in general has a lot to offer to human understanding, from thinking about modernity and consumerism to the importance of imagination and wonder for what it means to be human. He has some manuscripts and talks posted at his academia.edu page, and can be contacted at nick@thegeekanthropologist.com. To learn more, read Nicholas’ introductory TGA piece, “Just to Vex and Be Vexed in Return.

Laya Liebseller – Editor

Laya, is an anthropologist by day and table-top gamer by night, studying at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her Thesis, Rules of the House, focused on the power relations within World of Darkness live-action role-player communities in America. Her current PhD work focuses on larpers in Scandinavia, and how culture impacts the way we play as a species. Her interests include nerds, geeks, and gamers of all types, horror and dystopic worlds in popular culture, institutions of play, and boundary making within play spaces (both internal and external).

Alissa Whitmore – Editor

Alissa Whitmore is an archaeologist, gamer, and pop culture enthusiast. Her interests include portrayals of archaeology and the ancient world in popular culture, alternative archaeology, and Greco-Roman magic. As a professor and museum educator, Alissa loves teaching anthropology and history with science fiction, fantasy, and comics, as well as questioning the impacts that these media have on our understanding of ourselves, others, and the past. She has varying degrees geekspertise in superheroes and comics, role-playing video games, Batman, and Magic the Gathering. She also has a plastic, life-size skeleton named Dem Bones.

Rayna Elizabeth – Contributor

Rayna was named after the android from the original Star Trek series. She is currently an undergrad student at York University in Toronto, focusing on degrees in both anthropology and psychology. The human story has always fascinated her, especially when it comes to exploring life through imagination. Her anthropological interests include death studies, human factors in space, classism, ethics, and science and technology studies. As a singer-songwriter, she tries to incorporate her ideas in order to express them through a musical medium. She is also a gamer and loves everything sci-fi and fantasy. Feel free to contact her anytime @raynaelizabeth or by email at rayna.ca@gmail.com. You can also visit her personal website and tumblr. Read her introductory piece, Bones, Betazoids and Battleaxes: Life and Times of an Anthrogeek to learn more about her.

Hello from a fellow fan of all things above (Star Trek fan, Stargate, Stargate SG1, Geek etc). I just stumbled upon your blog from merry old England. I have personally meet Data (or Brent Spinner). Also – go team Picard – anybody that could go Borg and return semi-sane wins in my book!

“Neeks” is a word that is often used in parallel to hip-hop culture and the notion of street cred or street wisdom. It’s not necessarily simply as assembly of “nerd” and “geek”, although it is sometimes used this way. I had read some definitions on the urban dictionary that led me to discard the term for the time being, but it’s true that it would be interesting to explore it. Thanks for bringing that back to mind! That said, I simply wouldn’t want to call myself that, it sounds off.

Salut Marrie – Pierre !
I enjoyed reading your blog and love your writing styles loads.
I am a junior year,majoring in Sociology and Anthropology from Thailand and I must say you made Anthropology much more fascinating already 🙂

I’m so happy to know you enjoy reading my blog! It’s always great to know you’re not the only one who thinks what you write is interesting! I find that so far, I’m not writing content so intricately linked with anthropology, and I’m aiming at analysing more specialised literature in coming weeks and months. What topics are you interested in as far as sociology and anthropology? 🙂